Friday, September 12, 2008

Palin Believes in Punishing the Victims of Rape

Photo by Osocio

The Palin campaign has denied that the Sarah Palin as mayor of Wasilla, took an active role in charging Rape victims for the exams used to gather evidence about their attackers. We now have proof that her denials are false and pathetic. This combined with her belief that abortion should be illegal even in the cases of rape and incest is a clear signs that Palin believes rape victims should be punished for being raped.

New evidence has surfaced that proves that as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin had a direct hand in imposing fees to pay for post-sexual assault medical exams conducted by the city to gather evidence.

Palin's role is now confirmed by Wasilla City budget documents available online. Under Sarah Palin's administration, Wasilla cut funds that had previously paid for the medical exams and began charging victims or their health insurers the $500 to $1200 fees. Although Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella wrote USA Today earlier this week that the GOP vice presidential nominee "does not believe, nor has she ever believed, that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence-gathering test...To suggest otherwise is a deliberate misrepresentation of her commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Palin, as mayor, fired police chief Irl Stambaugh and replaced him with Charlie Fannon, who with Palin's knowledge, slashed the budget for the exams and began charging the city's victims of sexual assault. The city budget documents demonstrate Palin read and signed off on the new budget. A year later, alarmed Alaska lawmakers passed legislation outlawing the practice. - Jacob Alperin-Sheriff, Huffington Post
The GOP VP choice is dangerous to all the women in your life that you love, cherish and respect. Please make sure everyone you know is aware of her extremist beliefs and policies.

Update: As Gov., Palin also cut funding for adoption programs, so it seems her specific goal is to take away all choice from women-- not only the choice of contraception and abortion, assistance for rape vicitims-- but assistance for adoption proceedings as well. This makes her out of step even with other anti-choice religious groups and organizations. I was raised catholic and even though I have always disagreed with the catholic stance on contraception and abortion- (one of the things that turned me away from the church at age 12 and eventually pushed me towards first being an agnostic and then an atheist) the catholic church supports huge and well funded assistance programs for women who carry their pregnancy to term but choose to put their babies up for adoption.

Palin is clearly an "anti-women" woman.